University of Guelph Library
Issue: Many authors give away the rights to their own scholarly work without realizing that many terms of a publishing agreement are negotiable.
The traditional publishing model involves an exchange of intellectual property rights for the prestige and exposure of publication. Many authors feel that publication is a service and should not entail a forfeiture of intellectual property rights. This loss of property rights also results in a loss of control over dissemination of these works.
Solution: New approaches to author rights are available.
New options are available to researchers which facilitate retention of rights as authors:
- Modifying publishers' agreements on author rights and copyright by using the SPARC Author Addendum
- Understanding the journal's policies on self-archiving which can enable you to provide an open access version of your work
- Publishing with journals which have progressive copyright, access, and archiving policies. See RoMEO site for a directory of publishers' policies.
- Searching out scholarly open-access journal publications for submission. Select from the thousands of journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals.
At the library: Follow our side-bar links to information, tools & resources
- The RE & SC team offers consultations to authors (faculty, staff and graduate students) on topics related to author rights, publishing and copyright. Please contact Pascal Lupien (lib.research@uoguelph.ca ) for more details.
- We provide links to resources available to guide you in your decision-making. Follow the Learn More link for details.
- See our Services section on Author Rights for details.